Why do you waste so much time on the internet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#581

Post by riekus » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:13 AM UTC

xkbarkar wrote: post #305

riekus wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me so bad. I have it in the good and bad ways. In the good I will run couple marathons a month and in the bad I will eat whatever I can find. I always felt like an outcast, good to hear I am not alone :) For media consumption it is exactly the same. The good is that I get to the nitty gritty of technical problems. But I also read the unless crap till no end. I have been able to ditch Twitter, reddit, Facebook…

Haha. Same here. I have gotten back into reading though. That took a while because I lost the ability to concentrate on books as I grew more dependent on streaming and social media. Its been about a year now, since I left all the major social media hubs, got incredibly selective on daily news (only one local media outlet and a couple of polar opposite international ones that I pay for) and cut down on watching stream…

Same, but with books and audiobooks I just misuse them in the same way, feels like consumption addiction, even though, like you, it is all in the selfhelp / tutorial / learning space.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#582

Post by TimWillebrands » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:20 AM UTC

v-erne wrote: post #321

nvusuvu wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a married husband (almost 20 yrs) and father of five kids, allow me to share some wisdom. Spouse time is vital to a healthy, strong, vibrant, lasting relationship. Reddit doesn't care about you like your spouse does. And kids grow up way too fast. Treasure every moment.

>> Spouse time is vital to a healthy, strong, vibrant, lasting relationship Hear! Hear! This cannot be overstated. >> And kids grow up way too fast. Treasure every moment. And this on the other hand ... works only if You somehow like children (and who does not like small psychopats with dictatorial aspirations). For the others (I believe most of people who lives in my housing estate can be counted) I observe that the…

Interestingly, not caring about your children will likely result in little dictators. You might not want to give them attention, they do want it, and they'll get it one way or another.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#583

Post by mr_mitm » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:23 AM UTC

spir wrote: post #29

I am addicted to twitter and reddit. Especially reddit. It often takes the place of reading, hobbies, quiet moments, improving my home, talking with my spouse, and playing with my baby. When reddit records a click or an upvote, it thinks it has been a Good Product, and created Engagement. Reddit then takes those feedback loops and tunes the algorithm and feedback loops to create further engagement. But in reality, th…

The dangerous thing about reddit is the fact that it has these wonderful nuggets of information. Some really thoughtful opinion, or some unique perspective on things. I always use the example of someone writing essentially an essay on how to make neapolitan pizza [1], including a list of references, one of them being a scientific article. Where would I find this in a book or on the internet? Blog sites and similar things usually are only there to sell ads or something else, are padded with fluff or simply wrong. Here I have someone anonymous without any ulterior motive, without fluff, just exactly what I want: pure information in a useful structure.

Similarly you can sometimes find really cool answers on /r/askscience or /r/askhistorians.

Of course, this is in stark contrast to the vast amounts of low quality posts from people posting thoughtless one-liners while they are waiting on the bus, sitting on the toilet or about to fall asleep. Not to mention many toxic comments. But every now and then I find these little nuggets which keep me hooked.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/neapolitanpizza/comments/h8llnp/fre...

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#584

Post by iLoveOncall » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

comboy wrote: post #523

spir wrote: post #29

I am addicted to twitter and reddit. Especially reddit. It often takes the place of reading, hobbies, quiet moments, improving my home, talking with my spouse, and playing with my baby. When reddit records a click or an upvote, it thinks it has been a Good Product, and created Engagement. Reddit then takes those feedback loops and tunes the algorithm and feedback loops to create further engagement. But in reality, th…

> I think these products are mostly poison for my soul. You spend time on reddit because you want to. It seems unproductive to tell yourself that you don't. You have a cognitive disonance, logical contradiction that you just need to bring to the surface and follow through. When you are about to reddit ask yourself whether you want to or not. Not some idealized version of yourself in your head. Just what do you want r…

> You spend time on reddit because you want to. It seems unproductive to tell yourself that you don't.

"Just stop being depressed" - Psychiatrists hate that one trick.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#585

Post by jhugo » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

When I read stuff like this I feel a huge disconnect from the modern world. I have never enjoyed social media other than HN. It all seems like a vapid waste of time. Sometimes I start to scroll Instagram to see what I'm missing out on, and by the second interspersed ad I'm bored and mildly disgusted, so I close the app. Maybe it's just that the algorithm isn't giving me the content I really want/need, so I'm stuck in some kind of social media purgatory, but I really don't understand how people get addicted to it.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#586

Post by codetrotter » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

jhugo wrote: post #585

When I read stuff like this I feel a huge disconnect from the modern world. I have never enjoyed social media other than HN. It all seems like a vapid waste of time. Sometimes I start to scroll Instagram to see what I'm missing out on, and by the second interspersed ad I'm bored and mildly disgusted, so I close the app. Maybe it's just that the algorithm isn't giving me the content I really want/need, so I'm stuck in…

> Maybe it's just that the algorithm isn't giving me the content I really want/need

(Don’t) try TikTok.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#587

Post by comboy » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:48 AM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #561

comboy wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addiction is just a pattern, a framework of looking at reality. You could say you are suffering addiction withdrawal when you are away from somebody or some place you love. Addiction framework and associated solutions seem to be pretty effective for things like stopping heroin usage. Quite likely it can work for reddit too, but I'm guessing PC already tried it. I'm just offering a different framework and way of looki…

Addiction isn't "just a pattern". Stop treating people like logic-driven robots.

Its just your association with the term pattern. Or maybe mine. To me, love, death and myself are just some patterns too.

I mean just something that we name. If we look at a tree and I say its crown forms a nice sphere, I'm not treating trees like geometric objects and I can still appreciate its beauty and marvel.

Observing the same reality you can see it through different frameworks consisting of different patterns. The same tree can be seen as color palette for a designer, bunch of areas with different living conditions for microbiologist, shapes for painter, material for woodworker etc.

Once you divide reality to some patterns in a certain way (what I call a framework) when somebody suggests different division we usually don't throw away existing one, so we subdivide our patterns based on what's somebody is saying instead of looking at a whole thing and then the other framework usually seems like a detail, not important, worse, less useful.

Being able to abandon your preferred framework for a moment allows too see the same things differently.

E.g. I can have a long conversation with somebody who deeply believes in God, (we skip the church bit for a moment) and if I substitute just a name of the pattern, if I do s/God/Universe, it turns out our worldview is virtually identical despite me being an atheist.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#588

Post by whomst » Sat, May 07, 2022, 9:50 AM UTC

jhugo wrote: post #585

When I read stuff like this I feel a huge disconnect from the modern world. I have never enjoyed social media other than HN. It all seems like a vapid waste of time. Sometimes I start to scroll Instagram to see what I'm missing out on, and by the second interspersed ad I'm bored and mildly disgusted, so I close the app. Maybe it's just that the algorithm isn't giving me the content I really want/need, so I'm stuck in…

To be fair almost all of Hacker News is a vapid waste of time too

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#589

Post by jhugo » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:02 AM UTC

whomst wrote: post #588

jhugo wrote: post #585

When I read stuff like this I feel a huge disconnect from the modern world. I have never enjoyed social media other than HN. It all seems like a vapid waste of time. Sometimes I start to scroll Instagram to see what I'm missing out on, and by the second interspersed ad I'm bored and mildly disgusted, so I close the app. Maybe it's just that the algorithm isn't giving me the content I really want/need, so I'm stuck in…

To be fair almost all of Hacker News is a vapid waste of time too

But the 10~20% that is very high quality is worth it. The link to something interesting that starts a meaningful, nuanced discussion that often includes people close to the topic at hand. I've never seen that kind of content on other social media.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#590

Post by comboy » Sat, May 07, 2022, 10:06 AM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #584

comboy wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think these products are mostly poison for my soul. You spend time on reddit because you want to. It seems unproductive to tell yourself that you don't. You have a cognitive disonance, logical contradiction that you just need to bring to the surface and follow through. When you are about to reddit ask yourself whether you want to or not. Not some idealized version of yourself in your head. Just what do you want r…

> You spend time on reddit because you want to. It seems unproductive to tell yourself that you don't. "Just stop being depressed" - Psychiatrists hate that one trick.

That's not what I'm saying. If you want depression analogy it would be more like

"You are suffering most of the time. It seems unproductive to tell yourself that you aren't"